Robert L. Schoenfeld

“A researcher may not think of asking a question of nature until there is a means of getting at the answer.” In speaking these words, Robert L. Schoenfeld implicitly described the kind of researcher he himself was: one with boundless curiosity about the natural world and the ingenuity necessary to confront its mysteries even before he had a way to solve them. His inventiveness in the lab contributed to the success of many fellow scientists. Dr. Schoenfeld died May 22.
Dr. Schoenfeld was born April 1, 1920. After earning bachelor’s degrees in psychology and electrical engineering, he served as second lieutenant in the United States Army Signal Corps. After World War II, he worked as an engineer and researcher for 10 years. He earned both a master’s degree and doctorate of electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute, in 1949 and 1956 respectively. Following a research fellowship at Sloan-Kettering Institute and professorships at Polytechnic, he joined Rockefeller University in 1957 as an electrical engineer in the Electronics Shop, later known as the Laboratory of Electronics. The next year he became assistant professor, and in 1963, associate professor. He became professor emeritus in 1990.
Dr. Schoenfeld’s laboratory devised instrumentation and computer techniques for use in electrophysiological research. In his later years, his interest in neuroscience led him to author a book titled Explorers of the Nervous System: With Electronics, an Institutional Base, a Network of Scientists. Published in 2006, the book comprises a history of major 20th-century milestones in the study of neuroscience and discusses the importance of technology, mathematics and the physical sciences in the field, all examined through the lens of the author’s half-century career at Rockefeller.
Outside of his laboratory, Dr. Schoenfeld was an actor in a theater group in Golden’s Bridge, New York, and was a voracious reader, reputed to have once completed four novels in a single night.
Dr. Schoenfeld is survived by his third wife, Shulamith Stechel, two sons, David and Paul, and two daughters, Nedda Schoenfeld and Bethany Collins.